'DWTS' Karina Smirnoff's Crocodile Tears Were Playing to the Judges (VIDEO)

Monday night's Dancing With the Stars was all about performance and selling a dance that the pros hadn't done a lot before. It meant Gilles Marini was dancing Bollywood, Melissa Rycroft rocked out to the Jitterbug, and Shawn Johnson gave us a tumbling Mambo. It was great.

Tuesday morning, however, all the talk turned to pro Karina Smirnoff, though. It was her fall and subsequent tears that kind of made the show sizzle last night. Were those tears real? Were they the nerves of dancing in front of guest judge Paula Abdul? Or were they all part of her plan to try to get better scores after her lackluster hip-hop performance?

If it was the routine, then Smirnoff had us all fooled. The hip-hop routine with Apolo Anton Ohno went awry when a stray mic pack caused a slip during a dance Smirnoff already seemed nervous to perform. See below:

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The judges were incredibly kind to Smirnoff after her breakdown and it's clear that the pressure is on in a major way. Otherwise, how does one explain that uncharacteristic hysterical reaction?

Of course, having Abdul there may have also contributed. No doubt Abdul was ON last night and she is considered to be the queen (or at least the high priestess) of that style of dance, right?

It must have been scary to feel all that weight on her shoulders. Maybe.

But I am not buying it. Given the concern and pity scores her tears earned from the judges (they scored 34.5 points out of 40), her strategy worked quite well. It covered the slip-up quite nicely. Then again, as one judge said: "No one was looking at Karina anyway!"

All's well that ends well and my guess is that Karina will be back to dance another day.